Kyiv:
Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant, occupied by Moscow’s troops, came back online on Friday, the state operator said, after Kiev claimed the nuclear power plant had been cut off from the national power grid by Russian shelling.
The plant, Europe’s largest nuclear facility, was cut off from Ukraine’s power grid for the first time in its 40-year history on Thursday as a result of “actions by the invaders,” Energoatom said.
The operator said that as of 14:04 (1104 GMT) the plant is “connected to the grid and producing electricity for Ukraine’s needs”.
French President Emmanuel Macron warned during a visit to Algeria that “civil nuclear energy must be fully protected” even in the event of war.
Separately on Friday, the EU presidency vowed to hold an emergency summit on the spiraling energy crisis caused by the war in Ukraine, which entered its seventh month this week.
The bloc has vowed to wean its 27 member states from Russian oil and gas in protest at the invasion, which has led to severe international sanctions against Moscow.
On Friday, Norway, a major natural gas producer, said it is joining the latest EU sanctions package.
However, supply concerns have sent prices soaring, with Germany and France reporting record electricity prices for 2023 on Friday, more than 10 times higher than for this year.
Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala said his country, which holds the EU presidency, will call “an urgent meeting of energy ministers to discuss specific emergency measures”.
– Fear of plants –
The Zaporizhzhya nuclear power plant has been a source of growing concern since Russian forces seized it in early March.
In recent weeks, Kiev and Moscow have blamed each other for rocket attacks around the facility in the southern Ukrainian city of Energodar.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said late Thursday that the power outage was caused by Russian shelling on the last active power line connecting the plant to the grid.
“Russia is one step away from radiation disasters for both Ukrainians and all Europeans,” he said.
Energoatom said the outage was caused by ash pit fires at an adjacent thermal power plant, which damaged a line connecting the only two of the plant’s six reactors in operation.
Energoatom accused Russian attacks of damaging the three other power lines connecting the complex to the national grid, saying a reactor had been reconnected Friday afternoon “and capacity is being added”.
The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Rafael Mariano Grossi, said on Thursday that he plans to visit the site in a few days, where he warns of a potential disaster.
Ukraine’s Energy Minister Lana Zerkal said an IAEA inspection is “scheduled for next week”.
But Zerkal told Ukrainian Radio NV late Thursday that she was skeptical that the mission would go ahead, despite Moscow’s formal agreement, because “they are artificially creating all the conditions so that the mission will not reach the site.”
– American warning –
Kiev suspects Moscow plans to move power from the Zaporizhzhya plant to the Crimean peninsula, which was annexed by Russian forces in 2014.
On Thursday, Washington warned against such a move.
“The electricity it produces is rightfully from Ukraine,” Vedant Patel, a spokesman for the foreign ministry, told reporters.
The British Ministry of Defense said satellite images showed an increased presence of Russian troops at the power plant with armored personnel carriers positioned within 60 meters (200 feet) of a reactor.
In another development on Friday, French energy company TotalEnergies said it was divesting its stake in a Russian gas field after a media report that some of its fuel ended up in Russian fighter jets.
The company said it had struck a deal on Friday with its local Russian partner Novatek to sell its 49 percent stake in the Termokarstovoye gas field “on economic terms that will allow TotalEnergies to recover the outstanding amounts invested in the field”.
It said the divestment was agreed in July and the Russian authorities approved it on August 25.
A day earlier, the French daily Le Monde had reported on the alleged refining of natural gas condensates from Termokarstovoye into jet fuel for fighter-bombers involved in the Russian attack on Ukraine.
TotalEnergies is the only major Western energy group to continue operations in Russia, but chief executive Patrick Pouyanne said in March that the Russian gas fields exploited by the company’s joint ventures are vital to Europe’s energy supply.
Also on Friday, the office of Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said he would visit Germany next week for talks with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, which are expected to focus on Europe’s energy crisis.
Germany is hugely dependent on Russian gas and Scholz says an Iberian pipeline to central Europe could ease the supply crisis.
Currently, Spain has only two low-capacity connections to the French gas network, which links to the rest of Europe.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by DailyExpertNews staff and has been published from a syndicated feed.)